New polls suggest Deeds surge in Va.

Two new automated polls show a surge in support for state Sen. Creigh Deeds in the final days before Tuesday’s three-way Virginia Democratic primary for governor.

A SurveyUSA poll for ABC 7/WJLA-TV released Monday shows Deeds leading with 42 percent, trailed by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe at 30 percent and former state Del. Brian Moran with 21 percent. Only 7 percent remain undecided in the poll of 535 likely Democratic voters, which was conducted June 5 through June 7.

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McAuliffe led the same poll a week ago with 35 percent, while Deeds placed second with 29 percent, Moran at 26 percent and 11 percent were undecided.

A Public Policy Polling survey released Sunday showed the same trend, with Deeds commanding 40 percent of those polled to McAuliffe’s 26 percent and Moran’s 24 percent. Like the SurveyUSA poll, Last week’s PPP poll had McAuliffe leading with 29 percent, Deeds and Moran tied at 20 percent and 35 percent undecided.

“The undecideds have broken almost exclusively to Creigh Deeds in Virginia's Democratic primary for Governor, allowing him to open up a double digit lead 36 hours before voters in the state head to the polls,” wrote PPP pollster Tom Jensen in an email announcing Sunday’s results.

"We continue to build momentum all across the commonwealth,” Deeds’ campaign manager Joe Abbey said in a statement on Sunday’s poll.

Deeds’ campaign has argued over the last week that they have the momentum. But the uncertainty in polling the race has made that difficult to ascertain.

Neither the campaigns nor pollsters have a reliable expectation of Tuesday’s turnout, as demonstrated by a variety of recent polls that have been all over the map. The high number of undecideds in previous polls also made close observers hesitant to declare any sort of momentum for any of the three campaigns.

The McAuliffe and Moran campaigns have dismissed the latest polls, pointing to the past uncertainty in the race and maintaining that all three candidates will come into Election Day neck-and-neck.

But both the Moran and McAuliffe campaigns have redirected their fire from each other toward the state senator, questioning his electability against Republican nominee Bob McDonnell.

“Bob McDonnell has already beat him,” McAuliffe told the Richmond Times Dispatch Saturday, pointing to the 2005 attorney general’s race in which McDonnell beat Deeds by 323 votes. “[McDonnell] beat him [on] issues — and he can do it again.”

Moran’s campaign emailed McAuliffe’s comment to reporters, and picked up the criticism in a statement Sunday night.

Pointing to internal polls that the campaign did not release, Moran campaign manager Andrew Roos said they project “both Creigh Deeds and Terry McAuliffe losing to Bob McDonnell in November in Northern Virginia.”

“Clearly as voters have now gotten information about our opponents’ records, they are concluding that Brian Moran not only has the best record but gives Democrats the absolute best chance at winning in November,” Roos said. “The trend lines are all moving in the right direction, and we are closing hard with momentum at the right time.”